[Joe_Dull]

I know exactly what happened to this dude...

The stage setup on those programmes isn't conducive to live instruments, and I'd imagine the poor guy wasn't given much of a soundcheck beforehand. He probably was just expected to "get out there and play", whereas those of us who play guitar know that it's never that simple. You have to make sure the levels are right, no channels are giving feedback, you're in tune, all the jacks are working OK, leads are tidy, etc. As other posters have pointed out, when the audience and judges weren't given instant gratification they immediately turned sour. The muddy distortion was most likely him rushing the settings due to a combination of no soundcheck and the pressure of thousands already booing him. I mean, for f*ck's sake he didn't even get a chance to show off the bass part of his guitar. And then when he finally started, they immediately cut to a shot of a sweet innocent girl with her fingers in her ears. God help her, having to put of with that racket. This kind of sh1t turns my stomach.

/rant.

[LH Pathe]

Yeap.. and if the lad on all Ireland talent show had to setup his own kit he'd have bn there all night but also, what was touched on, the wrong environment which the likes should have been aware of n thus only appearing the veritable condescending professionals they can tend to be anyhow. Where talent translates as cheap entertainment, featuring performing monkeys and maybe some singing, for the musically uninitiated 'music fans' aka no hands-on experience or whatever it takes to reach an adequate level of appreciation that actual musical talent is not going to be recieved particularly well :/ they should know better on entering such shows.

But there's a loophole in the word talent and maybe theyre just exploiting it to show up the show regardless, fully expecting such a response

[120_Minutes]

TBH the guy in the OP did himself no favours. soundcheck or not, he took chances with his gear and it backfired. couldnt he have had a wireless setup? used powers supplies other than batteries? had decent leads? then when he did get going its straight into the chugga chugga. any guitarist with his head screwed on would have been ready to flip a switch and play and go straight in with his most impressive lick. IMO this guy did everything wrong given the situation he was in. had i'd been a judge i'd be hitting the red x too, maybe not as quick as the judges....but fairly sharpish.

[nyarlothothep]

Tbh I think the concepts of shooting from the hip decision making and snap judgements are highly over valued in Western society, ditto for extroversion. I would have given him at least 30 seconds playing time before I arrived at a conclusion. For example, some guitarists warm up with rhythm playing before launching into the shred guitar soloing and that depends on the guitarist, you could say an amazing guitarist doesn't need to do that but then you're just conforming all guitarists to one standard. Again not that you could hear anything over the ignorant baying of the audience. Joe Dull points out that these shows may not really accomodate actual musicians, you know the ones that can play, in terms of set up. That said, he's auditioning, he's not a pro yet. There's any number of arguments one could throw out, for example people expect nothing less than absolutely professional in every aspect of music, image, sound set up etc. But that's a very narrow view, one which I personally have become tired and bored of reading across fora. Judgement should initially be focused on what you play and how well you play it. The other elements can come later. Of course thats out of step with the current ideologies/fads surrounding music these days, and that's precisely what they are, opinions masquerading as received wisdom and by implication, facts of life, which they're patently not. But then historically people have a love affair with this process.

[120_Minutes]

I'd have to disagree, if I were "auditioning" on national tv I'd have my **** together. Do you think he'd get away with that in a band situation when the drummers counting off the first song? I've been in and around bands long enough to know that once your onstage, audience patience is thin. Axl didn't get away with it in the point did he?

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

[Cherry_Cola]

Originally Posted by 120_Minutes

I'd have to disagree, if I were "auditioning" on national tv I'd have my **** together. Do you think he'd get away with that in a band situation when the drummers counting off the first song? I've been in and around bands long enough to know that once your onstage, audience patience is thin. Axl didn't get away with it in the point did he?

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

This sums it up in one line really. These shows have quite a few acts to get through in a day and obviously it's expected that you have your **** together when you get on the stage with minimal preparation time required. Depending on the time the audition occurred then the audience and judges are gonna be a little restless also due to the sheer number of acts.

If I was a judge, I would have rejected it too as he looked totally unprepared for the whole thing.

That said, I did enjoy the Battle For Ozzfest show a few years back, some great bands were on it and got decent exposure.

Either way though, this guy has gotten more attention because of this whole thing and that can hardly be bad as it's obviously what he was looking for.